Posts by John

Nationalise the beekeeping industry

I can see the greedy glint in Darling's eyes.

"All your bees are belong to us!"

@Pedant point

"the speed of sound *in what*?"

In metres per second, presumably.

Although, being American, they probably express it in some bonkers mediaeval measure such as acres per square pound.

Aggression

Little as I like siding with Edmonds, he's very right in pointing out that the letters sent out to non licence holders are aggressive, rude and threatening. They contain pseudo-legal language designed to scare. As a non-viewer I resent the insinuation of criminality.

Incidentally, were those TV "detector" vans ever real? I mean is it possible to detect a CRT by any electromagnetic emissions? Other than light, I mean - clearly if they can see a TV through a person's window they don't need fancy star trek tech.

Oh, nearly forgot to Post Like A Pirate. Keel-haul the bla'guards!

FSM

As any Flying Spaghetti Monster-ist will tell you, piracy is a good thing. It's the decline in the number of pirates that produces global warming. You can prove it with a graph, so it must be true (just like Al Gore's graphs).

The reason for the warming in the 1730's is that they captured only _one_ treasure ship. Had they looted more, warming would have been averted.

Re: An easy check, By Chris W

Does Luxembourg now have so many mobile phones? When I worked there, ten years ago, no-one used mobiles. There's no need for them. The country is so small that when you want to talk to someone, you just open a window and shout.

Defra takes over ...

"All your bees are belong to us!"

@AC re the martian

AC, is it YOU who has taken something? If you find theBoreFromMars' blabbering lunacy coherent for once, perhaps you've been slipped something seriously psychotropic with your elevenses.

For god's sake don't encourage him. Just smile sweetly as you pass him on the street shouting at people who aren't there.

Savages

Can't help but wonder just how civilising all that corporate punishment really was. So many posts here gleefully recall their school pranks.

"oh but we were punished for it, didn't do us any harm."

Doesn't appear to have done you any good either. Just how civilised did you end up, when you suggest solutions including military training and sterilisation of the unworthy?

Origami ISS

A space station made of paper would be excellent for the Japanese. It could withstand earthquakes.

@ Jonathan Richards - jet stream spinnakers

Damn, my plan would have worked perfectly, if it hadn't been for those pesky wings.

Back to the drawing board then. Let's do away with the wings and get lift from somewhere else. Rotors perhaps. Deploy a spinnaker from a helicopter. Choppers really are fuel-guzzlers, so there's even more scope for world-saving reductions in consumption. The effort from a whirlybird's engines has two components - lift, and forward motion. Tethering the wind at least would save the fuel used in propelling the vessel forwards. And probably move helicopters faster than they've ever moved before. Go green and go faster!

I hope I'm not going to hear next that choppers can't get high enough to harness the jetstreams. Enough with that "can't do" attitude - let your imagination reach for the skies. Think of the polar bears, man! The helicopter fuselage itself wouldn't need to get into the stratosphere, just the sail. A long enough halyard would do the trick.

In fact why limit ourselves to just spinnakers? A good Bermudan rig can sail upwind as well. And as I mentioned with my original aeroplane idea it needn't go on the top where it would interfere with the rotors. It could go underneath, upside down (in respect to sailing boats). Just stick a mast out the bottom of the chopper, with a jib and a mainsail and a boom.

This technological revolution may know no bounds! One day we'll sail to the moon.

Consider the lillies

I am so out of touch - I had to stop and wonder who Lily Allen is. I thought it was the glitzy Liverpudlian who presents Blankety Blank, but that's Lily Savage isn't it? Now I could understand that being a controversial choice.

Back by Christmas, 2063

Let's see - six months out, sixteen months relaxing on the red sand, and six months back. What are the 'nauts going to be doing for the remaining 362 months of their 390 month mission? That's a long time to be seeking out new life and new civilisation.

But if someone were to send amanfrommars back home, it'd be worth it.